The Continuing Importance of Staying with Ernest
by OughtaKnowBetter
Summary: Chapter 3 has arrived. Please, please review!
1. Default Chapter

Usual disclaimer: you know the drill

Dedication: this is dedicated to aniki19, koalared, laily, louise and brigitta. You guys asked me to write more, especially about Tess and Ernest. If you hadn't, this story would never have been written. Ask, and ye shall receive!

The Continuing Importance of Staying With Ernest

By OughtaKnowBetter

The trio of girls giggled, and pointed. Brennan Mulray sighed, and took another sip of his latte. 

            "Isn't there an age limit for letting kids into coffee bars?" he grumbled. "There ought to be."

            "At least you get to be there," Jesse Kilmartin pointed out through the comm. ring. "Some of us have to stay back at Sanctuary, monitoring the sensors and keeping you out of trouble. Some of us have to be satisfied with plain old every day coffee to keep us awake."

            "Can we cut the chatter?" Lexa Pierce asked irritably. "We're on a mission. Try to act like it." She glared at the teeny-bopper trio, who giggled again. No doubt, Lexa presumed, they thought that Lexa was _with_ Brennan. _Not in this lifetime, chickie-poo's_. Lexa had had enough of close relationships. Being around Mutant X was about all she could handle these days, and that with a bunch of corridors to keep between her and their whole 'we're a team' mentality. _All your__ fault, Adam Kane. You taught them to care about each other. You tried to protect them from the realities of existence. Look where it got you: dead._

            "Cut 'em a break," Shalimar Fox advised, barely keeping the giggle out of her own voice. "We were all young once. Besides, it's Brennan they're drooling over, Lexa. Not you." She was seated at a back table where she could scan the entire coffee bar, back up if something went wrong. She'd already turned away several admirers of her own who had zoomed in on her sitting alone. She'd considered taking one's number—he looked something like approaching cute, and didn't treat her like a ditsy blonde—but reconsidered. As Lexa said, this was business. Fun could wait for a better time. "Oops, guys, heads up. Coming through the door is a guy who fits your description, Lex."

            Brennan oh-so-casually took a large swallow of his latte, reflecting wryly that it might be the last sip he got for a while. Leading an interesting life tended to cut coffee breaks short.

            Lexa had a bit more faith. She sipped daintily at hers, setting it down as the stranger joined them. The man was carefully nondescript, with mousy brown hair cut neatly across his forehead. Haunted brown eyes stared at them; the man was scared.

            "I shouldn't even be here," he moaned, sliding onto the empty stool. "If he finds out, he'll kill me."

            "So don't let him find out," Lexa told him, taking yet another sip. "Do you have them?"

            Still the man hesitated. "Not exactly."

            Lexa cocked her head, her voice taking on a knife blade's edge. "You say your boss will kill you if he finds out. Consider this: I'll kill you right now, right here and now, if you don't hand over the files I want."

            There was a moment of silence, while the man pondered her words.

            Brennan felt it was time to add his own two cents, try to slow things down a tad. "Now, now, Lexa. There are so many witnesses around. At least take him into the back alley before you kill him." Brennan knew that he himself couldn't do anything like that. But Lexa? He wasn't so certain. The light elemental had a ruthlessness that alternately horrified and amazed him. It was like playing with fire.

            The man flicked his eyes at Lexa, then at Brennan, then back to Lexa. The pair could almost see him visibly wilt. "All right. But listen, I couldn't get the files. I could only get their location."

            "And that is supposed to help us how?"

            "I couldn't get to them," the man begged. "They were too well guarded. He has two men on duty at all times, right in front of the door to his lab. And more guarding the entrance."

            "That's not what you told my people. You said you could get the plans."

            "I thought I could. I was wrong," he admitted. "Look, I just want out. I don't want to be a part of this any more. I want to give you the location, and in return, you help me disappear. Forever. That's the deal."

            "Deal?" Lexa drawled out the word. "I don't recall having any deal beyond 'we'll meet you here and you give us the files.' And right now I don't even see that."

            Jesse piped up through the comm. ring so that only the New Mutants could hear him. "See if you can get him to talk about the project."

            "Of course, it would help if we knew what you knew," Brennan suggested obediently. "Who, what, where; that sort of thing."

            "I only know a couple of the names, only partials," the man said eagerly, trying to get Brennan on his side. "The scientist is a Dr. Maguire."

            "First name?"

            "I don't know. We always call him Dr. Maguire. Not even Doc. Real scrawny type guy, little fringe of white hair around his ears and not much else. Yeah, and a goatee. He must've been in a fire not too long ago; one side of his face and his left arm are real red, like they got burned and haven't finished healing."

            "Sounds familiar," Jesse murmured into Brennan's ear. Lexa gave the elemental a sharp look, barely suppressing a frown.

            "Location?" she snapped.

            "A warehouse, down off of Second, near Lexington. It doesn't look like much, but inside it's high tech. A mad scientist's wet dream. It's his new lab. We moved there two weeks ago. I think he's still going to the old one every now and again, though."

            "Right." Lexa cut him off. "What's this Maguire character doing?"

            "I don't know exactly," the man said, "but believe me, I wouldn't want to be one of his victims."

            "Why not?"

            "It's the screams," the informant whispered, his face going ashen. "I've started hearing them in my sleep, in my nightmares. Listen, I'm not going back there. You have to—"

            "I don't have to do anything," Lexa hissed. "You're his head lab tech. Don't tell me that you don't know what he's doing. I don't believe you."

            "I don't!" the man wailed, wringing his hands. "Maguire doesn't trust anyone! Not even me. All I know is bits and pieces, and they don't seem to go together. Only his partner knows what this is all about."

            "What partner?" Brennan asked, before Jesse could nudge him to ask the same thing.

            "I don't know his name," the man admitted fearfully. "I've only seen him twice. Rich guy, keeps himself in shape. Not too tall, but broad shoulders. Dark hair."

            "That could describe half the men in this city," Lexa observed acidly, carefully neglecting the fact that two-thirds the men in the coffee bar alone were balding and overweight. "I want a name."

            "I tell you, I don't have a name to give you!" The man looked around fearfully. "I've been here too long already. If you won't help, then I'm on my own. I'm running, starting now." He stood up, sloshing Lexa's latte.

            Brennan put a hand on his arm to stop him. "We haven't said that we won't help you. Sit down."

            "No." The man glanced around him again. "I'm out of here."

            "We're going together," Brennan said. "We have a safe route out of the city. After that, you're on your own."

            "Not good enough," the man said. "If you want the whole story, I need more than a taxi cab ride."

            "We all have needs," Lexa said in an infuriatingly quiet tone. "_We _need more names, details of certain projects…"

            "I haven't got them."

            "Then neither do we—" Lexa said, when Brennan interrupted her. "We'll get you out of the city, to a safe house," he offered. "We can't do anything more."

            "You can go back to the lab and get the files," Lexa said, glaring at Brennan. The man paled.

            "No, he can't," Brennan said firmly. "Finish your drink. We're going."

            Shalimar took that as her own cue, back in the corner, to toss down the rest of her latte and saunter out ahead of the group to act as scout. She eyed the rest of the patrons as she exited, murmuring into her ring, "the teeny-bopper trio is gone."

            "Right," Jesse said across the comm. link. "Like they're going to be packing machine guns to blow this guy away. Shal, they're twelve-year olds."

            The informant came to a decision. "This is all I'm going to give you. You get me out of here, I'll tell you what I know about Maguire's project. But not until then." He glared at Lexa. "You kill me, you'll never know."

            "Deal," Brennan said, before Lexa could offer any more threats. He drained his cup and stood up. "Let's go."

            The sidewalk was bright with sunshine, casual afternoon shoppers dawdling along and casting covetous looks into the store windows. Personally, Brennan couldn't see the attraction in the antique broken vase going for thirty times what it sold for in 1910, but, as P.T. Barnum said_, there's one born every minute_. He and Lexa kept their informant carefully sequestered between the two of them, scanning the area for trouble. Brennan had already lost sight of Shalimar, but knew that she wasn't far away.

            "Where are we going?" the informant wanted to know.

            "Safe house." Brennan didn't offer any more information. "So, what's this guy Maguire working on? Walk and talk, guy."

            The informant threw him a sour look. "Genetic research. What else?"

            "How about a little more clarity, buddy? What kind of genetic research?"

            "How far are we from this safe house of yours?"

            "'Bout a mile."

            "Okay." The informant gave in. "He's got at least two projects going. Rich guy knows about the tech-ie one. Collar thing, that makes mutant powers more powerful." Brennan stiffened. Lexa threw him a questioning glance, but the elemental shook his head briefly: _later_. 

The informant continued without noticing. "Then he's got something going with pre-natal work, some kind of side-line that he won't let anybody else touch. I'm not involved in that, and grateful for it! Even Maguire says that's scary stuff, and I'm plenty scared by his tech experiments."

            "Anything else?" Lexa prompted.

            "Don't know. Maguire sneaks out late at night sometimes, comes back either snarling or humming to himself. He's up to something, but I don't know what it is. Don't think rich guy knows, either."

            "You could find out—" Lexa started to say when Shalimar interrupted them over the comm. ring.

            "Get down!"

            Neither mutant waited for a second invitation. Brennan grabbed the man and flung him behind a massive concrete pot that contained an anemic tree trying to bring out leaves in response to spring. Shots rang out, dusting the pavement. Shards jumped into the air. Passersby screamed and ran.

            Lexa crouched beside them. "I think we'd better disappear. Literally." She took Brennan's hand, and reached for the informant's.

            "No!" he screamed. "You can't save me! You lied to me!" Panic-stricken, he jumped up and ran.

            "Get back here!" Brennan yelled, springing to his feet. More shots hurtled past him, and he ducked automatically.

            "Stay here," Lexa ordered, and vanished. Brennan not quite saw a wavering heat signature scuttle off in pursuit of the informant. He tried again to follow, but more bullets whistled past his head.

            "Shal?" he asked his comm. ring.

            "Rooftop," came her reply. "I'm almost there."

            "Hurry it up. Our boy is getting away." One more peek, and more bullets. Brennan pulled his head back, wishing heartily that Lexa had taken him with her. He heard frantic car horns—Brennan guessed that the informant had decided to run across a busy street—and the screeling of burning rubber as heavy feet stomped on brakes. A few screams accompanied the noise, and Brennan cursed under his breath. He debated trying to make a run for it.

            "You're clear, Brennan. The sniper took a powder." Shalimar's voice was angry, then took on a note of amazement. "Brennan, there were three of them up here, all women. Damn. They _could_ have been your teeny-bopper trio. But they're gone now."

            "And so is our informant." Lexa materialized back beside Brennan. "He's dead. Ran into the street, truck mowed him down. Not the driver's fault. Let's go, before the police arrive and want statements that we don't want to give." This time she did take Brennan's hand, and the pair vanished in front of astonished onlookers hiding inside the stores staring at the dead body lying crumpled in front of a delivery truck. The driver had emerged from the truck cab, almost in tears.

*          *          *

            "Second and Lexington." Jesse's fingers danced over the computer keyboard as he spoke into the communications channel. Here at Sanctuary, he didn't need to use the ring. "Owned by a corporation by the name of Gene-Wright Industries. Clever pun. Hah. Who wants to bet that Gene-Wright is a fictitious company that Wall Street never heard of?"

            "Sucker bet, Jess. What else have you got?"

            "Precious little. The certificate of occupancy for the warehouse says two or three stories high with six exits. No floor plans that I can find. Ah, here we go. Lots of invoices, for lab equipment, bio equipment. Even a couple of hospital beds. Now what do you think Dr. Maguire would want with hospital beds?"

            "Experimenting on a few mutants, perhaps?" Lexa asked with acid in her voice.

            "Give the lady the prize. We have a moderate quantity of phlebotomy equipment making its way into the afore-mentioned warehouse, presumably for taking blood specimens from the victims that your informant mentioned. Hm." Jesse turned grim. "Tech toys. Gene experimentation. Brennan, Shal, does the name Maguire ring any bells for you. Like, year old bells?"

            "He's dead," Brennan said flatly. "Absalom Maguire died in the fire."

            "No body was ever found," Shalimar put in. "We all just assumed that he died, and that his ashes were mixed in with the destruction of his lab." They could hear the shuddering in her voice. All of the New Mutants had almost died in that same fire.

            "Somebody want to fill me in?" Lexa asked. "We're supposed to be a team, you know."

            Brennan gave her a baleful look. "Keep reminding me, Lexa. I guess I forgot that we were a team when you ordered us out on this mission without telling us where your intel came from."

            Lexa flushed. "That's different."

            "Really? You'll have to explain the difference to me some day."

            "It was about a year ago," Jesse put in, cutting off the argument. "We met up with a little girl named Tess Maguire and her brother Ernest. Ernest is a molecular, like me, and Tess—well, Tess is what you might call a psionic vampire. She can take a 'charge' from any mutant she touches and acquire his powers for a while."

            "I take it you think that these kids belong to this Dr. Maguire."

            "Not any more. They ran away. We picked them up, and they're currently living out in the country with an old friend of Adam's." Jesse couldn't help the twinge of regret on speaking the dead man's name. "I e-speak with them every now and again; check up on them. Ernest says he's getting better control over his powers. Says he even slipped out of his room one night and played around the neighborhood for an hour before Granny Esther caught up with him."

            "More family? Will Maguire try to hook up with them?"

            "Not family, no. Lady Esther took the kids in, adopted them so that Tess and Ernest could grow up in peace and quiet."

            "At least as much peace and quiet as any mutant could have," Shalimar inserted.

            "Like normal kids," Jesse said firmly. "And, no, I don't see any reason for Maguire to want his kids back. He was only interested in mutants and what he could do with them."

            "But his kids are mutants," Lexa pointed out.

            "Tess burned down his warehouse," Brennan told her. "No, Maguire isn't going to be interested in finding his kids again."

            "I'm not convinced. Jesse, contact those kids. Find out if they've seen their father."

            "They haven't," Jesse protested. "Believe me, Lexa, if they had, Tess or Ernest would have been yelling for help."

            "Contact them," Lexa said firmly.

*          *          *

            "Why is it," Brennan asked, his teeth gritted, "that things crawl out from underneath rocks whenever _you're_ around?" A bolt of electricity shot out from Brennan's fingertips, knocking his six foot three opponent off of his feet and into a convenient brick wall. The opponent slid down the face of the wall to land in an ungainly heap.

            "You're just saying that because you care." The black-haired girl beside him sent off her own bolt, hers a stream of highly-charged photons. Another of the six humanoid steam-rollers went down under the onslaught. Lexa Pierce, newest member of the somewhat diminished version of the New Mutants, could hold her own against any three men.

            Unfortunately, there were still ten opponents left.

            "Less talk, more action," the third member of their troop advised, putting her own words to good use. Shalimar Fox, the feral of the group, bounded off of that same brick wall and knocked heads together. Scratch two more. "Do I have to do all of the work?"

            Far from the scene, safely hidden away but frustrated at not being part of the action, Jesse Kilmartin scanned the sensors bouncing off the satellites high in the sky. "Guys, I show four more bogies coming in on you from the south, and a duo escaping on foot from the north side of the building. I wouldn't want anyone to take me seriously," and the sarcasm was flowing heavily, "but nine'll get you ten that Lexa's files are migrating north along with the pair of escapees."

            "They're not my files," Lexa snarled. The next blast from her fingertips was a little bit hotter than usual. "At least, not yet."

            "Ooh, touchy are we?" Jesse observed. "Yes, we definitely have an escapee." His voice changed timbre, becoming more serious. "Guys, our target is moving more quickly. And the pair has," Jesse checked another screen, "yes, they are now in a dark black sedan, heading north by northwest, license plate B as in Boy, B as in Boy…Damn. Lost them."

            "Find them!" Lexa hissed. "How many dark black sedans could there be in this section of town?"

            "I'm looking at six right now, Lex. And there's an intersection up ahead."

            Her wordless growl was accompanied by a last blast of light. It didn't do any good; their remaining opponents had vanished into the back alleys. Their work was done: the New Mutants had been distracted long enough for the target to get away. The opponents gathered up their fallen comrades and moved on.

            None of the New Mutants tried to stop them. It wouldn't have done any good; clearly the men were low level flunkies and interrogating them a waste of time and energy better spent elsewhere.

            Shalimar sauntered back to the other two. "So? Where to now?"

            Lexa started to glare, then thought better of it. It wasn't Shalimar's fault that the target had not been acquired. Mutant X had been out-maneuvered. "Back to Sanctuary," she ordered. "Jesse, see if you can track down the partial license plate. Have you heard from those Maguire kids yet?"

            Brennan and Shalimar exchanged glances. Brennan's expression clearly had the who-died-and-made-you-boss? look to it. But he sighed, and shrugged; not worth arguing over. Not today.

            Which was a good thing, because the next thing he knew, he was diving for the ground, dodging a haze of bullets.

            "Hey!" he protested. "The fight's over!"

            "Tell them that." Shalimar pointed up at the far rooftop. "Coming from there."

            "Going from there." Brennan twisted a flurry of electrons between his fingers, and aimed it at the rooftop. The lightening rod behind the snipers absorbed the power, shuttling it safely into the ground. Brennan cursed.

            "They know who we are," Shalimar realized, "and what we are."

            "But not where we are." Lexa vanished, bending the evening lamppost light around her so that no one could see her progress.

            No one, that is, except Shalimar. Feral senses turned up high, she followed the heat signature into the building.

            But she knew it would do no good. The snipers, like Elvis, had already left the building.

*          *          *

            "Guys, we have a problem," Jesse announced as the three mutants walked into the computer room of Sanctuary, still disheveled and angry from the failed mission. The warehouse that the dead informant had pointed them to had been cleaned out, with a bomb set to go off and remove all the remaining evidence. It had worked: Brennan discovered its existence just in time to get the three of them out and away from danger. They had watched their lead go up in flames, doused by powerful water hoses that hastily summoned firemen deployed to prevent the blaze from spreading.

            "You're telling me," Lexa growled. "We lost our informant, we lost the warehouse, we have no leads, and I need a shower."

            "No argument there," Brennan said. "What's the problem, Jess?"

            "I just e-talked to Ernest. They're in trouble."

            "Maguire showed up?" Lexa leaned forward eagerly.

            "Nothing so straightforward. Lady Esther's in the hospital. Ernest is kind of dancing around what's wrong with her, but it sounds like a mini-stroke. Tess has run away, Ernest is staying with a neighbor, and the local authorities are trying to put him in a foster home until Lady Esther comes home."

            "Recipe for disaster," was Shalimar's opinion. "What are the foster parents going to say when Ernest phases out in front of them?"

            "We've got more important things to do," Lexa said. "I appreciate that the kids need help, but that's what the authorities are there for. They'll take care of them. If Dr. Maguire hasn't contacted them, then we don't need to go running." She looked from one stony face to the other. "You're not serious."

            "Dead serious, Lex," Jesse assured her. "Tess saved my life. If it weren't for her, I'd be sitting in a little cremation urn on the mantelpiece."

            "Sanctuary hasn't got a mantelpiece."

            "Lucky me. I could be in a plant pot. Lexa, I mean it. If Tess and Ernest are in trouble, we owe it to them to go."

            Lexa folded her arms. "You go. I'm staying here and working on this mission."

            "Sounds good to me. I'll see you in a few days." Jesse started shutting down the computer.

            "Just like that? You're going?"

            "Yup."

            "So am I," Shalimar chimed in.

            "Me, too," said Brennan.

            Lexa's expression tightened. Jesse hid his own smile, and said, "thanks, guys, but maybe Lexa's right. Maybe we don't all have to go. After all, how hard can it be to straighten out a couple of kids for a few days?"

*          *          *

            "After all, how hard can it be to straighten out a couple of kids?"

            The social worker's face took on that polite, you-don't-know-what-you're-letting-yourself-in-for look, and smiled graciously. "It's a pleasure to see relatives stepping up in time of need, Mr. Kilmartin. Their grandmother will be so pleased, and this will certainly spur her recovery in the hospital. I'm sure that your niece and nephew will be very grateful to have you around. However, I must warn you that your niece has been missing for several days. The police have been notified and are looking, but we have concerns that she may have been kidnapped."

            "Nope," Ernest piped up. "She ran away. Without me," he added with a flash of resentment. "She never did that before."

            Ernest had grown in the intervening year, Jesse realized. The scrawny ten year old of last year had started into his adolescent growth spurt, with his tousled brown hair almost up to Jesse's chin. The shoulders were beginning to square up, and his feet had outgrown every other part of him. Ernest was on his way to rivaling Brennan for height, though Jesse suspected that it would still take the kid several years to get there.

            Jesse raised his eyebrows. "You know where she is, Ernest?"

            "Nope. Well, maybe. She wasn't there yesterday."

            "But—?"

            "It's where she always goes when she's upset."

            "Is Theresa upset, Ernest?" Mrs. Pettigrew asked. "Why is she upset?"

            "She's not upset," Ernest hastily denied. "She's not."

            Jesse gently pulled Ernest over to him, turning back to Mrs. Pettigrew. "I think it might be best if Ernest and I did some looking for Tess. I'll call you when I find her. Hopefully it won't be too long. Right, Ernest?"

            Ernest looked doubtful. "Yeah."

            But it worked well enough that the social worker left. Jesse wasted no time in sitting Ernest down in the parlor, making them both comfortable on the sofa. "So?"

            Ernest trusted Jesse implicitly. Jesse was the one who had taught Ernest how to control his powers, who had saved Ernest's own life with Tess's help when Ernest was literally fading away. Ernest had worked with Jesse one on one for several weeks before moving in with Lady Esther who was posing as his grandmother. 

Adam had thought that the adoption would be an ideal solution for the two young mutants. Lady Esther herself possessed a minor psionic talent, though not enough to make her the target of any black ops organization. Putting the three of them out in a country house far from the city was a dream come true for not only Tess and Ernest but Lady Esther as well. Ernest learned to trust Jesse and his control over his molecular power, and Tess learned from Lady Esther that an adult could be trusted.

            That trust came through now. "Tess ran away 'cause she didn't want to hurt anybody," Ernest explained. "I thought that she'd go to The Rock, but when I went to find her, she wasn't there."

            Maybe it made perfect sense to the eleven year old, but not to Jesse. "Back up, buddy," he said. "Why would Tess be hurting anyone? What was happening?"

            Ernest explained. "It was her powers. You guys all called it her vampire powers and laughed, but it wasn't funny anymore. Not in the last month or so. Tess started to _need_ to get a charge from a mutant, or she started getting sick. I tried to give her a charge from me every now and again, but you know what does to you."

            Jesse did. When he'd first met Tess, when she'd needed a 'charge' from Jesse to give to Ernest for a temporary cure, she'd knocked Jesse out for almost two days. It hadn't been deliberate; it was just a side effect from having all his power drained out in a split second. Tess had been able to moderate the power drain after that, but Jesse still remembered spending a lot of time flat on his back recuperating from Tess's 'charge' that she took in order to help Ernest stay alive. She'd 'borrowed' Jesse's ability to phase in order to solidify Ernest's own body, and did it several times more under Adam's supervision until Adam had been able to devise a cure for the boy.

            "That was very brave of you," he said. "Was it enough?"

            "Nope," Ernest admitted. "She couldn't help it. She made me sick when she tried to take even a little. So Tess stopped trying. Said she wouldn't take a charge off of me. Then Granny Esther told her to take a charge from her, and Tess did, and then Granny got sick and went to the hospital."

            "Not a mini-stroke, I take it," Jesse said.

            "No, but I couldn't tell the doctors that. Besides, who'd listen to me? So I went to stay with Jacob and his mom and dad. But they got worried because Tess wouldn't come home, so they called Mrs. Pettigrew. And I couldn't get hold of you 'cause I couldn't remember your e-mail address. I had to wait until they let me come home for some clothes to sneak onto the computer to call you from the address book."

            "You did the right thing," Jesse reassured the boy. "Now, let's go see if we can't persuade Tess to come home."

            "She won't come," Ernest warned.

            "We'll just have to try harder, won't we?"

*          *          *

            "I'm going blind from looking at the computer screen all day long," Shalimar complained. "Isn't this how people develop the need for glasses?"

            "You'd look great in glasses, Shalimar," Brennan lied. He leaned back in his chair and stretched. "I never appreciated Jesse enough, doing all this computer research for us."

            "Less chatter, more research," Lexa said, peering at her own screen. "Have you narrowed down that partial license plate yet?"

            "Do you know how many black sedans there are with a license plate with the letters 'BB' in them?"

            "Yes." Lexa pointed to the computer screen. "Six hundred fifty two. I have eliminated fifty-three of them by checking the registration. Those fifty-three belong to women. We want the one that belongs to our informant's rich man with the dark hair. Keep looking." 

            "There's got to be an easier way to go about this," Brennan groaned.

            "I'm open to suggestions. When you come up with one, let me know. Sitting here while Absalom Maguire gets farther and farther away is not my idea of efficiency."

            "Actually, I do," Shalimar said. The other two looked at her in surprise. "What, I can't come up with a good idea?"

            "Of course, you can, Shal, it's just that—"

            "Give me the dumb blonde routine, Mulray, and I'll hand you your ears in a hat box." Shalimar indicated her computer screen. "While the two of you were trying to track down Jesse's black sedan, I ran a check on our dead informant. Peter O'Hare, lately employed by Gene-Wright Industries, ran up a lot of credit card debt. Want to know where he spent his money?"

            "Hopefully not on a wife and kids. They'd have a tough time coping, now that he's gone."

            "Nope. Better than that. He ran up quite a tab at a small bar a few miles outside of town. I'm getting expenditures almost every weeknight, at least three out of five and a whopper on Friday nights. Now our Peter lived on the other side of town, no where near this bar. The warehouse that burned down was no where near this bar. Why do you suppose that he went _there_ to unwind?"

            "Maybe he liked the waitresses."

            "Or maybe he used to work near there. Didn't he say that Maguire had moved to his present location only a couple of weeks ago? There's an industrial park near this bar. It would be easy for Maguire to have set up shop there. And it's north of here."

            "It's a long shot." Lexa turned back to her computer.

            "So's the black sedan," Brennan shot back. He grinned. "You sit here, going blind tracking down your sedan. Shal and I'll check out this bar."

            Lexa scowled. "Just remember, this is business. Think about that as you're ordering your beers."


	2. Continuing Ernest 2

            Brennan swung the low slung red sports car into the parking slot with practiced ease, turning off the engine and double checking that the anti-theft devices were on. It wasn't too long ago that a car like this would have been a perfect target for him, and old habits died hard. It was early evening as they arrived at _Barry's Watering Hole_, prime time for people getting out of work and not yet willing to head home to a frozen dinner to be nuked in the microwave. 

Shalimar preceded him into the bar, a dimly lit room with smoke hovering above, a wood-grained bar top wiped smooth from many years of many spilled beers, and the omni-present jukebox in the corner spitting out a whiny tune of lost love that could barely be heard over the clink of glasses. She coughed delicately, feeling sorry for Brennan whose nose was closer to the pollution than her own. Then again, Brennan didn't have feral senses to be annoyed by the aroma of used nicotine, so perhaps it worked out.

            Brennan showed the picture that Shalimar had pulled off of the internet of O'Hare. "Ever see this guy before?"

            The bartender took a quick look. "Who's asking?"

            "We're not friends of his," Shalimar said. The bartender had an honest face. And, more importantly, he _smelled_ honest. He only watered down the drinks a little, which is why the place was on the full side. "And we're not looking for money. We're actually looking for his previous boss. We can't find the factory. Do you know where he used to work?"

            "Sure. Not a problem. It's the industrial park, just north of here." The bartender jerked his thumb in a vaguely northern direction. "Not sure which factory, though. Guy came in, did his drinking, went home. Then did it all over again the next night. I was glad when he changed jobs, went some place else. Seemed like a nice guy. Deserved better than a job that turned him into a drunk."

            Brennan nodded, as if in agreement. The bartender obviously didn't know that O'Hare hadn't changed jobs, just changed work locations.  He stayed casual. "Gene-Wright have a place up there?"

            The bartender shrugged. "Could be. I don't keep track of the companies. Go look at the directory at the entrance to the industrial park. That'll tell you."

            Shalimar glanced uneasily at Brennan as they left the bar. "That was odd."

            "What? We came, we asked, we got answers. What's so odd?"

            "Seems like every time I come to a bar with you to ask a few questions, we get involved in a fight."

            "You're paranoid, Shal."

            "Maybe. But I'll feel better once we get the obligatory fight out of the way. Then we can get down to business."

            Brennan laughed. "Get in the car, Shal."

            Splat! A bullet whizzed by his ear. Brennan yelled, and dove into the car, Shalimar right behind him. He revved the engine and zoomed out. Shalimar looked back, trying to find where the sniper was. Another car pulled out behind them.

            "That's them," Shalimar said, adrenaline pumping. "Three of 'em. Black sedan. Different license plate, though. Not our wayward fugitives with the files."

            "Seatbelts, Shal." Brennan concentrated on keeping the car on the road, taking the curve much too fast. Another bullet creased the paint. "Damn. I just waxed this thing."

            "This is getting annoying," Shalimar commented. She grabbed onto the dash to keep from being flung against the car door. "Just who did you piss off enough to track you this far to take pot shots at?"

            "Haven't the foggiest," Brennan said. He put the car into a racing turn, flinging it ninety degrees to the right and flooring the pedal. The car leaped forward. Their attackers took a more sedate path around the corner, losing ground but not their target. "Hang on."

            "Can you pull over? I'd like to ask these bozo's some questions. Like, why they keep shooting at you."

            "Me? What did I do?"

            "Good question. Was it your breath?" She looked around. "Hey! They're veering off. After them! I've got questions, and they've got the answers!"

            "Too late." Brennan swung the red sportster around, but their quarry had already taken advantage of the V-8 engine under the black sedan's hood to flee. "Damn. I would've liked to have asked them a few questions myself." He leaned back in the seat, trying to pretend that he wasn't as shaken as he looked. Little electrical sparks leaked from his fingertips, and he hurriedly quashed them before he sent Shalimar's hair up in an static electric frizz. "This is getting seriously annoying."

*          *          *

            The first black sedan, best guess according to the license plate partial, belonged to a Mr. Jonathan A. Tarbell, of Gloucestertown, with an address that Lexa recognized as belonging to the 'fabulously wealthy and not afraid to show it' set. Mr. Tarbell owned several companies, one of which was located in the industrial park not too far from the bar that Shalimar had located. Lexa wasn't about to admit it, but when the two locations dove-tailed, she knew she had the right place.

            She considered alerting the pair, then decided against it. Let them waste their time at the bar, drinking a beer or two. She had better things to do, and a mission to accomplish. Dealing with Mutant X was the challenging part of her present assignment. As good as they were, none of her current teammates possessed the drive to succeed that she did, the need to follow the orders of the Dominion. They were always quick to question, to ask if what they were doing was really right. As valuable as that was, it made them difficult to work with. Especially when the Dominion required a task that, on the surface, appeared to be not in mankind's best interest.

            Lexa herself sometimes doubted the Dominion's wisdom. But now was not the time to indulge in such luxuries. She headed out.

*          *          *

            "This way." Ernest led Jesse out through the back of the house and into the woods behind. The trees stretched for miles; Lady Esther had chosen a remote location to raise the children, a place where things could happen and not be noticed. It had seemed a wise decision a year ago, and still seemed to be one today. Ernest, at least, had prospered.

            The trail led through the trees, with low hanging bushes trying to scrape Jesse's hair off of his head. Ernest, still a foot shorter, had no such problems, skipping ahead with pleasure at being back in the forest again. He'd missed hiking back here on the week-end, he confided to Jesse. Mrs. Pettigrew wouldn't allow Jacob's parents to let him out of their sight, not after Tess bolted. Both molecular's shared a liking for such activities, and Jesse paused to smell the clean air.

            "So where's this Rock?" Jesse gave the location the same emphasis that Ernest had.

            "Back here a ways." Ernest kept them going. "It's really a cave, but it doesn't go too far in. More of a roof over a little patch. Tess and I would go there like every day at first. Then it got better, when we started to know more kids at school. But it's still Tess's and my special place. Even Granny Esther doesn't come here. Says that we ought to have a place of our own, away from everybody, even her. She's pretty neat, for an old lady."

            "Yeah, she is," Jesse agreed, remembering his own introduction to Lady Esther. Emma had been entranced by her: an old lady who pretended to be a crazy white witch so that she could cover up her meager mutant abilities as a psionic. He covered over a cough; Emma should be here, instead of lying dead in the hard cold ground. 

            But life moved on. Jesse had already resolved to stick around until Lady Esther was out of the hospital, and then some. The house needed repairs, things that an old woman didn't have it in her to do and two kids wouldn't have the first clue about. It would be like a vacation. And Ernest had already been bugging him for some computer upgrades. That would be fun.

            Ernest stopped him. "She's there," he whispered.

            Jesse could barely see the outline of the girl between the trees. She sat inside The Rock—it really was a shallow cave, just enough to keep the rain off if the wind didn't blow it in—with her arms hugging her knees and her light brown hair falling into her face. Tess had grown as much as Ernest, he realized, her figure going from little girl filling out into the promise of a beautiful young woman. Emma's long dead words came back to him: _be careful with her, Jess. She's at the impressionable age, and you've definitely impressed her. She's got a crush on you, and probably will for some time. Watch what you say and do. Keep it platonic, no matter what._

            "Wait here," he whispered to Ernest. The kid nodded, trusting in his fellow molecular. Jesse would make it all better.

            Jesse made no attempt to hide, but neither did he crash through the underbrush. He moved quietly but purposefully until he stood some twenty feet from the opening of The Rock. The girl still didn't notice him, rocking back and worth, trapped in her own world. "Tess?"

            Her head flew up, and she started in alarm. "Jesse?"

            "Tess, why are you out here? What's wrong?"

            "Stay away from me!" she stammered, trying to get to her feet. She grabbed onto the wall of the cave to brace herself, and Jesse had to stop himself from rushing to her. The girl was clearly weakened by whatever was going on. She could barely stand, and needed help. Ernest had been right. Not getting a charge from another mutant had made Tess ill. "Stay away! I don't want to hurt you."

            "You're not going to hurt me," Jesse soothed. "We're friends. Aren't we?"

            Tess looked pale, and sick. "Jesse, please stay away from me! I'm no good! I hurt everyone who comes near me."

            Jesse stopped. Tess looked about ready to bolt, despite her illness. Had she picked up pneumonia staying out here in the woods at night? It was another possibility. "Tess, please let me help you. Come inside."

            "You can't help me," she sobbed. "No one can. It just hurts." She staggered to the back of the shallow cave, almost collapsing.

            Jesse could stand it no longer. He dashed forward, grabbing her to prevent her from sliding to the cold stone floor.

            She felt light and frail in his arms, and chilled. He slipped off his jacket and wrapped it around her, then picked her up and nestled her against his chest. "Ernest," he called, "I've got her. Go back to the house and start heating up something to get inside her. Some hot soup, or hot chocolate. Something like that."

            "On it."

            Tess murmured something unintelligible. Jesse shifted her weight more securely in his arms. "I'm taking you home, Tess."

            Tess stirred. Half-conscious, she put up a wondering hand to his face, as if unable to believe that he had come to get her. Then realization hit her: "Oh, no!"

            It was too late. The power drain had begun. Tess couldn't take her hand away from Jesse's face. Helpless, they both tumbled to the ground, Tess's hand riveted to Jesse, pulling a 'charge' deeper than she'd ever done before in her life. Something inside her kept her going, forcing her to drain the power out of her best friend. Jesse crumbled in front of her, the life ebbing from his eyes, too late understanding what Tess was trying to prevent.

*          *          *

            "I haven't had my obligatory fight yet," Shalimar reminded Brennan. They had successfully entered the warehouse that belonged to Gene-Wright Industries, and were sneaking through the corridors, trying to keep from being noticed. The two guards at the front entrance didn't count; Brennan had taken them down from a distance with two well-placed streams of electrons.

            "Count your blessings."

            "I already have, and this is not one of them. Let's get Lexa's files and get out of here."

            "Don't you want to know what Maguire is doing here?"

            "I already know. It's something evil and malicious, and the world is better off without it. And Maguire, for that matter, but I won't quibble. And I don't care if Lexa never gets her precious files, as long as nobody else does either. Shall we blow up the place instead? Return the favor from Maguire's other factory that he blew up just for us?" Then Shalimar froze, her eyes going slitted. She cocked her head, peering at nothing. Then— "You can come out now, Lexa."

            "Do you have to make so much noise?" Lexa materialized beside Brennan. 

The elemental gave a start. "Where did you come from?"

"Same place you did. Sanctuary. Only my route was more direct."

"But you took longer to find it."

"Can we stop arguing, and get on with this?" Shalimar asked. "Since there are a number of opposing forces coming at us from down this hall?"

"Keep 'em busy," Lexa advised, and vanished in a flicker of light. "I'll get the files," came out of thin air.

"You'd think she could stay and help," Shalimar groused. "This is her mission, after all." Then she grinned: four men were running down the hall at them, mayhem in their eyes. She took out one man with a spinning back kick, ricocheted off the wall, and knocked another into submission on the way down.

"Quit your complaining. You're getting your obligatory fight, aren't you?" Brennan chose the low tech but effective blow to the jaw. His opponent staggered backwards and slid to the floor. He whirled around to deck another when he caught sight of something. "Hey, what's that?"

'That' was a white gas that was seeping out of the air vents. Moments later there were several sleepy men and two mutants passed out on the floor.

*          *          *

            Absalom Maguire looked Lexa over very thoroughly. More thoroughly than she would like, considering that he had her securely tied to a chair. He looked almost like the picture that she had managed to pull up on him after gaining the name from the informant O'Hare and filling it out with more info by Mutant X. There was a shock of white hair that made him look like a tacky version of Einstein, and a skinny chest that spoke of too little time spent working out. His skin was pale, suggesting that a day at the beach was not in this man's mind-set. But on his cheek and extending from his wrist onto his hand was a savage-looking red burn that looked to be approximately a year old. That was an easy deduction for Lexa to make after hearing Mutant X's story of rescuing Maguire's children from him. Maguire had been burned in the fire that almost killed Mutant X and the two children. Obviously it hadn't slowed him down for very long.

            And just as obviously this scientist knew mutants. Lexa had walked right into the trap completely unawares. Maguire didn't need to see her coming; hadn't, in fact. Lexa had bent the light around her so that she could approach invisibly.

            But Maguire had movement sensors out, and a fine filament net dropped over her as soon as she entered the target zone. An electric shock played through the metallic fibers had knocked her out. When she woke up, she was sitting here in front of a gloating Maguire.

            He walked around her, observing her from every side. Lexa didn't give him the satisfaction of following his progress with her eyes, though every other sense she possessed kept track of his whereabouts. He finally came to a halt in front of her. He cocked his head.

            "An elemental?"

            Lexa didn't answer.

            "Of course you are. Bending light, I believe, according to what the security cameras showed. Or rather, what they didn't show. Too bad I was prepared for you."

            "You didn't know I was coming," Lexa shot back.

            "Not you personally, no. But someone would come. They had to. I am rather glad that it was someone with your talents. You're going to be useful."

            "I'm not going to help you. Get that thought out of your pointy little head."

            "Your bravado is wasted on me. I wouldn't bother, if I were you. Have you seen one of these?" Maguire held up a black leather collar that was shot through with silver wires.

            "No. What is it?" But Lexa, with a sinking feeling, had heard of this device from the rest of Mutant X. It had been used on Jesse a little over a year ago. Shalimar said that the molecular had woken up with screaming nightmares for three nights afterward. Lexa gritted her teeth, and told herself that she was made of sterner stuff. _I hope_.

            "This collar has two rather useful attributes. One, it allows me to control your actions. I can literally point you like a weapon with this collar on your neck."

            "And the other useful attribute?" Lexa strove for sarcasm instead of fear. Maguire wrapped the black thing around her neck, moving behind her to buckle it in place. It felt snug against her throat. She swallowed hard.

            "The second is that it concentrates your gift. You will be able to perform feats with this that you never dreamed of. For example," and Maguire warmed to his topic. "Your gift is the bending of light. With this collar, I can have you bend light so powerfully that the strongest laser is a mere flashlight compared to what you will do. And precise! I will be able to aim your light to within a micrometer."

            "I'm sure that you have a useful function for this talent that you seem to think that I have." For the life of her, Lexa couldn't see why Maguire would be so pleased that she was a light elemental. What could he be planning? Sending a laser bolt around the world?

            "Quite so. Shall I enlighten you? Oh dear, a pun."

            "I'll forgive you. What are your plans?" _And why does the Dominion want you stopped?_

            "There is this young man in the room next door. Like you, he is a mutant. Unlike you, he is not an elemental. He is a psionic, able to impose his thoughts upon anyone that he chooses. A rather powerful one, I might add, except for something in his brain that appears to be preventing him—and me—from utilizing his gift." Maguire paused to add weight to his next statement. "When that element in his brain has been burned out by a powerful yet precise laser and then removed, there will be no one in the world that will be able to resist his will."

            "Except you."

            "Well, yes, of course. For I will control the controls." Maguire held up a small black box. "I expect that the young man will eventually be grateful. My work with psionics has led me to believe that an inordinate number of them go insane due to the constant overload of psychic input. He is already showing signs of instability. After my interventions, that will no longer be of concern."

            "And you think that I'll help you with this mad scheme."

            "Like the young man, you will have no choice." Maguire fiddled with the black box on the table, adjusting the controls. Lexa struggled with her bonds, but they were too tight. "I recognize that I do not yet have the capability of removing the obstruction from his brain, but I expect that problem to be remedied shortly."

            "You're mad!"

            "No, merely impatient. To remove the obstruction after you have burned it into uselessness, I will require a molecular. In fact, there's one that I will enjoy using this collar on. He has caused me a great deal of trouble in the past, and I shall enjoy returning the favor. I set up a trap for him, and baited it with a conundrum."

            Lexa stayed silent. As she expected, that didn't stop Maguire from boasting about his plans.

            "I hired some assassins. Their job was to enrage the entire Mutant X team into chasing them back to this facility. It has worked; the team entered, and the soporific gas released into their vicinity. My men are picking them up from the main entrance corridor as we speak."

            Lexa kept still. Maguire apparently didn't know that Jesse, the sole molecular among the group, hadn't come along. Maguire was still one molecular short, with a few screws loose.

*          *          *

            "Jesse. Jesse, wake up."

            Jesse groaned. The lights were on, it was broad daylight, and it was Tess's voice in his ear. Dimly he recalled stumbling back to the house, leaning on two half-grown children, and collapsing onto the day bed downstairs. Crawling up the staircase to the guest bedroom had been out of the question.

            "Jesse, you got to get up. The social worker lady, Mrs. Pettigrew, she's at the door."

            It all came crashing back to him; that and a pounding head-ache that threatened to send him reeling to the bathroom. He'd found Tess, and she'd drained him. Again. The last time was a year ago, but the sensation was unmistakable. Not Tess's fault, he reminded himself. She'd warned him to keep away. A mere touch was all it took. Getting a 'charge' off of another mutant must be like a narcotic to her, part of what her 'gift' was. 'Psionic vampire' was a more apt description than any of them had guessed.

            "Jesse," Tess said more insistently. "You gotta get up. Mrs. Pettigrew is here. She wants to see you."

            "Why?" It came out as a barely intelligible mumble.

            "I called her, said I was back. You don't want the police still looking for me, do you?"

            Jesse had to admit that Tess was right. Summoning a Herculean effort, he pulled himself upright and slicked back his hair. Grabbing onto the furniture, he made his way to the parlor where Mrs. Pettigrew awaited.

            Ernest was politely entertaining the social worker with manners astounding in an eleven year old boy but he was rapidly running out of conversational gambits. Mrs. Pettigrew wasn't impressed with Ernest's ability to careen through video games with the speed of a photon torpedo. His straight A's in math and science garnered him more interest but the social worker's eyes were glazing over as he described his independent forays into differential equations that his fifth grade teacher had thrown at him in over-worked despair. He cast a desperate look toward the door, a look that brightened when Tess and Jesse came in.

            Jesse grabbed onto the back of a chair, hoping it looked casual instead of desperately trying not to fall down.

            "Mr. Kilmartin, you look terrible! Are you all right? Your niece tells me that you've come down with the flu."

            Bless Tess! Her brilliant mind was quick to come up with a plausible explanation. "That's right," he croaked. "Sorry to greet you like this. But as you can see, Tess is home, safe and sound. I'll stick around until Granny Esther is back on her feet. You won't have anything more to worry about." He swallowed hard, willing the contents of his stomach to stay there. "Would you take care of notifying the police for me? I'd appreciate it."

            "Certainly, Mr. Kilmartin." Mrs. Pettigrew gave him an appraising look, as if assessing his capability to care for two wayward children in this condition. "Young lady, I hope you will obey your uncle after this. You had us all very worried."

            "Yes, ma'am," Tess said demurely, so demurely that Jesse was concerned that she'd over-acted. "I won't do it again, ma'am. Now that Uncle Jesse is here, everything will be all right. I won't run away again."

            _Unless it suits you_, Jesse thought, keeping it to himself. "'scuse me," he said in a strangled voice, and dashed for the bathroom.

            When he emerged, the social worker was gone. Jesse flopped down on the sofa, feeling drained and wrung out. "You were polite to her, weren't you, Tess?" he asked suspiciously. Only Tess was there; Jesse could hear Ernest in the other room, tapping on the computer keyboard. Tess had The Rock; Ernest's refuge was his electronic Overworld.

            "Very polite, Uncle Jesse," Tess replied seriously. "We didn't want her messing around here anymore."

            _Uncle_ Jesse? Since when was he 'Uncle' Jesse to Tess? There was more here then met the eye. Jesse tried to sit up straight, wishing he could just flop over and die for a little while. "What's up?" he demanded. "Tess, I know you. What's going on?"

            Tess sighed, and turned a very adult face to him. "Jesse, I don't want you or Ernest to come looking for me any more."

            "Tess—"

            "I mean it, Jesse. I'm dangerous. I can't control my gift any longer. I have to have a fix, almost daily now. I never noticed it before, because I was helping Ernest and trying to stay alive in the city. That was my fix, and I never realized how badly I needed it. But here, now, with only Ernest to get a mutant charge from, I'm dying. If I don't get a charge, I get weak and sick. If I get a charge off of Ernest, he gets sick and weak. Look what I did to Granny Esther when she tried to help me. Look at what happened to you."

            "That was an accident." What was he going to do if Tess got up? Jesse wasn't certain that he could chase her. No, make that definite. No chasing. Running to the john, yes. Chasing a fourteen year old girl, no. He tried to keep making sense. "You can't go blaming yourself, Tess."

            "This isn't about blame, Jesse." When did Tess become so mature? "It's about what is. There's no cure. I'll just go on and on, hurting the people I love because I can't stop myself."

            "Adam wasn't the only researcher." Jesse started getting desperate. Tess was making entirely too much sense. "There are others. Others not like your father. We can find a cure for you. We did it for Ernest, and we can do it for you."

            "I don't think I have that much time." Tess smiled sadly. "Promise me you won't try to find me."

            "I'll promise no such thing! Tess, you're not leaving!"

            Tess stood up. "Yes, I am." She crossed the expanse of the room to put her hand lovingly on Jesse's cheek, caressing him with a surprisingly adult fashion. "I'm sorry it didn't work out." The drain began. "Do you remember the last time we did this, about a year ago? You thought that you were going to die, saving me. You told me to remember you, to do all the good things for this world that you wouldn't be able to do. Jesse, I'm going to tell you the same thing. Remember me. When you make something go right, let me have a small piece of that victory."

            "Tess—" Jesse tried to say, when blackness took him down.

*          *          *

            The pain was incredible. Lexa stopped trying to remove the black collar from around her neck and slumped down against the wall, exhausted. Then came the feeling of some warm and strong arms encircling her, rearranging her wayward limbs, an extraordinarily _nice_ feeling of having someone around who cared. She closed her eyes briefly, savoring the sensation.

            Maguire had done as he'd promised. The collar that he'd placed around her neck did indeed control her gift. Along with several of his goons, he'd forced her into the room with the boy he'd told her about, and forced her to burn that portion of his brain with a precision that astounded her. Lexa couldn't remember what had happened during that time, but the raw burning in her throat told her that she had done a lot of screaming. And that maybe remembering the scene wasn't going to be pleasant. She scratched at the edge of the collar one last time, gingerly.

            "Told you not to try," Brennan said idly. "If you try to get the collar off, you trigger the pain sensors. Hurts worse than a bee sting," he added sarcastically.

            "Been there, done that?"

            "Been there, done that. A couple of times, which just goes to prove how stupid I can be. Thought I could short-circuit it. I was wrong."

            Lexa struggled out of his arms and sat up, trying to throw off the very real need to crawl into a hole and cry. _Coffee break time is over, children_. And: _can't let the others see me break down_. She slammed her fist against the wall in a simulated rage.

            "Feel better?" Shalimar drawled.

            "No."

            "Well, this might. Good ole Doc Maguire was not a happy camper when he found out that Jesse wasn't with us. Care to speculate why?"

            "I don't need to speculate. I know why. There's this kid in the back chamber. He's about fifteen or so; another mutant. A psionic, with the power to make everyone think what he wants them to think. Except he's got this sort of inborn governor in him. Let me clarify: he _had_ this inborn governor in his brain. It is now fried to a crisp, thanks to Maguire using his little toy on me and my mutant flashlight abilities. Never knew I could be used with such surgical precision. Pun intended." She rubbed at the collar, trying to scratch beneath it. "The internal governor's not really functional any more, but right now it's shut down the kid's mutant abilities all together. Zilch. _Nada_. Just as if the kid wasn't a mutant at all. Maguire's plan is to get Jesse to phase into this kid's brain and remove the organ. After which Maguire will be able to use the kid to control any mind on Earth."

            Shalimar stared. "That's horrible."

            "Tell me about it. Then, Maguire tells me, he will have control over the most powerful people on this planet. He will literally be King of the World. So, after carefully contemplating all the possible ways to screw up Maguire's plans, please tell me that you have already contacted Jesse and told him to stay the hell away."

            Brennan wiggled his bare fingers at her. "Love to. Can't. No comm. ring. First thing to go, right after consciousness. Like I told you, Maguire and us have a history. He knows what we've got."

            "Tell me that Jesse doesn't know where we are."

            "Sorry," Shalimar said with false cheer. "Gave him a holler en route to this dump. We're a team; we keep in touch."

            "Which means that he'll be on his way here as soon as he arranges for a baby-sitter," Lexa said grimly. "Way to go, team."

            "Get real, Lexa. Tess is fourteen. She's old enough to _do_ the baby-sitting."

            Lexa flopped back down. There were no chairs to sit in, and nothing to kick except a concrete wall. "Is there anything else that can go wrong?"

            She was answered by a loud squalling outside their cell. The door was flung open, and a fourteen year old girl with a black collar thrust in.

            It was Tess.


	3. Continuing Ernest 3

            "Jesse! Jesse!"

            Hadn't he been through this scene before? Hadn't somebody taken pity on him, and killed him yet?

            "Tell me that Mrs. Pettigrew isn't outside, wanting to see me again?"

            "Huh?"

            Which was how Jesse learned that when Ernest had realized what had happened, he went into lock-down mode. Ernest might not have the facilities of Sanctuary, but the kid had been learning from Jesse via e-mail for the last year and was ready for almost anything.

            'Anything' even included his sister getting snatched by one or more evil-doers. Running away wasn't quite the same thing, but Ernest figured that it was close enough to qualify. The house got locked down. No one got in or out, and the phone was allowed to ring all it wanted. The messages on the answering machine proved to be mostly salesmen trying to sell magazines and health insurance, although Jesse figured that he'd better answer the one from Mrs. Pettigrew fairly soon.

            "How long?"

            Ernest looked uncomfortable. "It's morning, Jesse."

            "The next morning? Like, eighteen hours from when Tess came home?"

            "Yeah."

            _Cursing in front of an eleven year old is not cool. Gotta set a good example. Make Mrs. Pettigrew proud_. Jesse swallowed what he wanted to say and instead focused on what he thought a conscientious uncle should say. "Have you had breakfast yet?"

            "Yeah. I got hungry. There were some cookies and milk. And I figured that ice cream had plenty of calcium in it, like the commercials said."

            So much for being a guardian. Grateful that Mrs. Pettigrew wasn't around to see, Jesse carefully levered himself to his feet, grabbing on to the back of the chair so as not to fall on his face.

            An hour later he felt able to think, although standing still remained problematic. Tess was gone. If past history was anything to go by, Jesse himself wouldn't be able to function for another several hours. Time to call for help.

            He tabbed his comm. ring. "Shalimar? Brennan? Lexa? Anybody out there?"

            No answer. He tried again, wishing his head would stop throbbing.

            Then a voice came through. It didn't belong to any of Mutant X, and Jesse hadn't heard it in over a year, but he would have recognized even after ten years.

            "Mr. Kilmartin."

            "Absalom Maguire." Jesse felt himself go cold. No room for mistakes. Not an easy thing, with brains the consistency of week-old gelatin. "Your communicating on this link suggests that you have met some of my teammates recently."

            "Quite so, Mr. Kilmartin. Both Ms. Fox and Mr. Mulray are my guests, along with a Ms. Pierce with whom I believe you are also acquainted."

            "I hope you are treating them respectfully," Jesse said, motioning frantically for Ernest to remain silent. The eleven year old's eyes were bugging out of his head with terror, darting all around looking for an escape. Of them all, Ernest had suffered the most at his father's hands. Jesse quashed the feeling of rage building inside; no time for that now. He had to get the rest of Mutant X out of Maguire's hands. "Or don't you recall what happened the last time we met in person?"

            "I remember perfectly well, which is why I've made special preparations." Both Jesse and Ernest could hear the barely concealed snarl in Maguire's words. "You will come alone. You will present yourself, unarmed, at my door, and submit yourself to my project. Or I will turn the collars on your friends and leave them running. Do _you_ recall the collar, Mr. Kilmartin?"

            Jesse did. And, by the look on the kid's face, so did Ernest. Ernest's hands were shaking with naked fear.

            Stall for time. "I want to talk to the others," Jesse said evenly. "How do I know they're still alive? Or that you even have them?"

            "Oh, I have them," Maguire gloated. "Believe me, I have them. But I have someone else that you might enjoy hearing from even more."

            "Jesse?" The mature bravado was gone. Left in its place was a child in over her head. But even as he listened, Tess summoned her resolve. "Jesse, remember what I said. Don't come after me—" The words choked off in an agonized scream.

            "Maguire, you bastard! Turn it off!" Jesse yelled. "Turn it off! I'll be there!"

            Maguire did. All they could hear for several long moments was Tess's sobs, trying to catch her breath.

            Then: "I will expect you shortly, Mr. Kilmartin. As an added incentive for alacrity, I will subject one or more or your friends to my collar device every hour on the hour. Any tricks, and they will all feel its effects for as long as I need them to. Do I make myself clear?"

            "I'll be there," Jesse said sullenly. "You win."

*          *          *

            "Don't touch me!" There was a note of hysteria in Tess's voice. 

Brennan drew back. "All right, Tess. I won't touch you," he soothed. "What's wrong? Where's Jesse? And Ernest?"

"Home," she said grimly, "and they're going to stay there. I'm really sorry I got you guys into this."

Lexa looked in puzzlement at the other two. "This little girl got us into this? Am I missing something?"

"Lexa, meet Tess," Brennan introduced them. "Psionic Vampire, meet Lady of Light. And no, Tess, you did not get us into this. We did a pretty good job of it on our own. Where's Jess? He know you're here?"

"Oh, he knows all right." Tess fingered her black collar gingerly. "Daddy Dearest made sure of that. He told Jesse to come, alone and unarmed, here to this place. He told him to give himself up, or he'd use the collar on us all."

Lexa looked at the others. "I don't suppose there's any chance of Jesse sacrificing us for the greater good of the world?"

"You've met Jesse, and you can still ask that question?"

"Right." Lexa sighed. "We're going to have to get out of this mess ourselves. Any ideas?"

For once, Lexa would have liked a little chatter. Instead she was greeted by dismal silence.

*          *          *

            "That's close enough, Mr. Kilmartin."

            Jesse halted several yards away from Maguire and his men. The factory loomed darkly behind them, the double doors standing open in mock welcome and the interior lighted by fluorescent ceiling panels. A slender breeze ruffled Maguire's white mane, tickling Jesse's nose and reminding him of the spring brilliance that he was about to leave behind for the sake of his teammates. All six of Maguire's men had guns aimed at his head, but that wasn't what stopped the molecular. A quick phase, and the bullets would pass through him like so much air.

            No, what made Jesse pause was the sight of Tess, collar in place, with her father's hand on the black box controls. One wrong move, and Tess would be writhing on the ground, screaming in agony.

            He lifted his hands from his sides, to demonstrate his lack of weapons. "See? Unarmed, and alone. Let her go. Let them all go. You can have me."

            Maguire shook his head, his white mane of hair lifting in the quiet breeze. "No, I think we'll do much better if I keep them right where they are. In fact, if you look closely, you can see Mr. Mulray beating his fist against that window over there to the left. I suspect he's trying to tell you to leave. For his sake, I suggest that you ignore him." He tossed a black collar over to Jesse. It landed on the ground not three feet in front of him. "Put that on, Mr. Kilmartin. Quickly, or Mr. Mulray will experience the effects of his own collar." He lifted up the black box control device.

            Jesse picked it up. The collar was black, of a synthetic leather shot through with silver wires to make contact with his flesh and dig into his brain. This was the stuff of his nightmares. He remembered all too well the first time it had been used on him. This fiendish device was designed to force a mutant to use his powers in far greater quantities than he could ever imagine, and at the behest of another. When Maguire turned it on the first time, the lump of coal in Jesse's hand had been molecularly phased into a high-density diamond. And that was just a simple demonstration of what Maguire and his collar could force Jesse to do.

            "Put it on, Mr. Kilmartin." Maguire held up the controls. "Or do you need persuasion?"

            Jesse swallowed hard, and wrapped the synthetic leather around his throat. At Maguire's signal, one of his men stepped behind the molecular and snugged the collar tight, buckling it in place. Jesse could feel the wire contacts digging into his skin.

            "Testing," Maguire murmured, fiddling with the black box.

            Jesse didn't remember falling to the ground. His vision cleared, the red seeping away, and his muscles felt strangely weak as though Brennan had just zapped him. Tess leaned forward, held back by one of Maguire's men, tears in her eyes.

            "That's good enough. It works; he's under my control. Bring him along," Maguire ordered.

*          *          *

            Brennan leaned nonchalantly against the wall at the back end of the cell, where he could be easily seen by anyone entering. They would be bringing Tess back here, the trio reasoned, and anyone expecting trouble would be expecting it to come primarily from the largest member: Brennan. Seeing Brennan in no way prepared to offer a fight should throw the guards off just long enough for Shalimar and Lexa, positioned to either side of the door, to take them out.

            They heard Tess long before the men made an entrance. "Let go of me, you idiots!" she screeched. "He said to put me back in the cell, not yank my arms off!"

            It took two of them to manhandle Tess back inside. One hung on to the scratching, kicking, biting girl while the other unlocked the door. He swung it wide, noting carefully that the dangerous tall Brennan was not ready to rush him. Brennan spread his hands wide in submission. The man stepped inside, pushing Tess ahead of him.

            Lexa slammed the door back into his face. The man staggered back, stunned. Shalimar leaped over him and whirled a leg over Tess's head to connect with the second guard's jaw. He dropped like a rock.

            Brennan came out of his relaxed pose and grinned at Tess. "Delegation, Tess. That's all there is to it. Ready to boogie out of here?"

            "What about Jesse?"

            Lexa pushed forward. "He's keeping your father busy. We'll come back for him after we get these hellish collars off."

            "Don't call him that! He's not my father! I disown him! I despise him!"

            "Okay, okay," Lexa said, taken aback at her vehemence. "Just let's get out of here first, right?" She peered out through the doorway. "No one here. Let's go."

            The four mutants hustled. Alarms could go off at any moment. Their escape could still be foiled, as long as they wore the collars. Lexa turned the corner and saw the exit, guarded by four stalwarts.

            "Almost there," she whispered. "Tess, stay here. Let Brennan, Shalimar, and I handle these goons."

            "I want to help."

            "I know you do," Shalimar said quickly to forestall the explosion she saw building in Lexa. "But none of us have our powers in working condition while we wear these collars. That doesn't make us helpless; we train every day in martial arts. Do you?"

            "No." Tess stared angrily at the floor.

            "Then stay here, just for now. When you get home you can start training, too. Next time you can help. Okay?" Shalimar ignored the concept that nobody wanted to be in this situation in the first place. If Tess grew up with a normal childhood after this, she wouldn't need martial arts training to protect herself.

            All of that was secondary. "Obligatory fight scene number three," Shalimar murmured, launching herself into the air.

            The four guards never stood a chance. Having given up his chance in the cell, Brennan insisted on taking on two at once. The ladies eliminated the other pair with almost no trouble.

            Too bad the scene was captured on security cameras. And that the guard assigned to monitor the cameras had been given a little black box with remote-control wiring to their collars.

*          *          *

            This close to victory, Maguire was taking no chances. Jesse's hands were manacled behind him, and Maguire had the collar set onto a constant low dose that disrupted Jesse's very thoughts. He stumbled; the two guards to either side caught him and hauled him back onto his feet.

            "Put him in there," Maguire directed. "I have a few things to get ready before the final operation. They may as well get acquainted; I doubt they'll have any need to converse later."

            The men shoved Jesse into a dimly lit cell. He fell to the floor; it was gray, and concrete, and hard. Escape by phasing out through the similar walls might have been an option if only Jesse could get his powers to work. The collar prevented that.

            There was another occupant in the cell. Jesse shook his head, trying to focus. The other was a gangly teen-ager, some fifteen years old, Jesse surmised, with light brown hair in need of a haircut. From the looks of it, it was Maguire's fault that proper grooming hadn't been taken care of in some weeks. The kid looked bad, with dark circles under his eyes and hollows to his cheeks. Proper feeding also hadn't been high on Maguire's list of priorities. And, like Jesse, he wore a black collar.

            "I'd take it as a real favor," the kid said conversationally, "if you'd kill me right now. Before Ole Crazyhead over there does whatever it is that he's planning to do."

            Jesse groaned, and rolled over onto his back. His manacled hands made an uncomfortable lump to lie on. The collar whining at his brain didn't help, either. "What is it with kids today? All of you want to kill yourselves. You, Tess. Who's next?"

            "Can you blame me? I mean, look around." The kid gestured to the four concrete walls. Unlike Jesse, Maguire had left his hands free. He paused. "Who's Tess?"

            "Fourteen year old girl. Mutant, like you and me. Kinda pretty. You seen her?"

            "Nope. Probably won't get to, either." The kid hesitated once again. "You say she's pretty?"

            "Yeah. Smart, too. What's your name?"

            "Tommy. Tom," he corrected, with all the aplomb of a kid morphing into an adult.

            "Hey, Tom, I'm Jesse. Sorry I can't shake hands." The molecular tried to find a comfortable position, or at least one that didn't hurt as badly as his present one. "What are we doing here?"

            "You mean you really don't know?"

            "Wouldn't be asking if I did."

            "It's me." Tom gestured bitterly to his head. "I'm psychic. I can read other people's thoughts. Sometimes I can put ideas into their heads, but not very often. Maguire thinks he can soup me up so that I can do it all the time with this collar of his. And he's on a real ego trip. Wants to conquer the world."

            "Yeah. I've met him before. Nice kind of guy. You tried to get out of here?"

            "All the time." Tom pointed at his collar. "Kinda stops you dead in your tracks."

            "Yeah, I noticed that. What does Maguire need me for, if he's got you?"

            Tom shrugged. "My head doesn't always work so well. Maguire got this mutant woman to burn out a part of my brain that gets in the way, but he says he can't access it with his collar until that piece has actually been removed."

            "Which is where I come in." Jesse couldn't repress a shudder. He didn't doubt that Maguire could force him to do just that. Little bits of memories flooded back from the first time he'd run up against Maguire: the scientist had taken him into the back laboratory where he had fetuses and other living things. With the collar Maguire had forced Jesse to alter the molecular structure of this one, and that… Jesse shuddered again. All that had been destroyed in the fire. Everything except the memories which had plagued his nightmares for weeks after that, stuff that Adam had forced him to talk about behind closed doors, stuff that the other members of Mutant X knew nothing of. "Look, I'm going to get us both out of here."

            "Right." Tom didn't seem hopeful. "Better do it soon. After Doc Maguire is finished, there might not be much chance."

            That sounded odd. "What do you mean?"

            "I mean, this isn't the first time I've had people messing with my head. You don't know what's up there, Jesse. You don't want to know what's up there."

            "This is not getting any better," Jesse observed. He struggled to maintain a sitting position, wishing that Maguire had turned off the low dose of collar. It interfered with his ability to think.

            "That part of my brain that Maguire is trying to take out was put there deliberately, when I was a baby," Tom explained. "It kept me from going insane. It kept me from making everyone around me go insane, too."

            That got through. Jesse felt his blood run cold. "So you're saying that if Maguire makes me take this thing out of your brain, you're going to go insane and take the rest of the world with you?"

            "That's about the size of it."

            "The whole world? Not just a little piece of it? Say, you and me? Maybe Maguire if we're lucky?"

            "Nope. Whole world stuff. Armageddon. That's why they put it there in the first place." Tom tapped his skull again. "Got some pretty horrific stuff up there. The people who put the governor in my brain did a lot of hypnosis and stuff to help me ignore it, but it's there, lurking and waiting to get out. I see it in my nightmares sometimes."

            "Does Maguire know about this?"

            "I've been trying to tell him. I'm not sure that he's been listening."

*          *          *

            "Is the wall supposed to be doing that?" Lexa pointed at a spot underneath the window. The gray concrete was wavering.

            "It's Jesse!" Shalimar exclaimed.

            Brennan came up off of the floor. "It can't be. I saw him being taken away by Maguire. Could he have escaped?"

            "It's Ernest!" Tess shrieked delightedly. "Ernest! Get us out of here!"

            "Hurry up," came the plaintive voice from outside the barred window. "I can't hold this much longer."

            "I'm outta here!" Tess jumped up and dove straight into the wall, trusting her little brother to the max. She vanished through the gray.

            Brennan looked at the two women. "Ladies first."

            "I've got to be out my mind, trusting kids," Lexa muttered. But she followed Shalimar out through the not-quite opening.

            The outside air had a sweetness to it made all the better by the taste of freedom. The breeze ambling through had a faint wisp of magnolias trying to bloom, and the sun felt warm on their faces. Ernest grinned, although the expression faded as he remembered his mission. "Jesse sent me," he explained. "He said to get you guys out of there while he distracted my father for a while. Then he wanted you to come back and get him out." He screwed up his face. "Tess, you gotta make everybody hurry. You know our father. He's crazy! He's gonna hurt Jesse real bad!"

            Tess had no time for that. "Quick," she demanded of Ernest, "get these collar things off. We need 'em off so that that piece of crap inside can't get to us. Hurry up, Ernest!"

            Ernest blanched when he realized what they were. He had worn the same thing himself too many times. Screwing up his face, he seized the black collar around Tess's neck, phased it to insubstantiability, and pulled it free. His hands shook as he dropped it to the ground, biting his lip, almost afraid that the mere touch of the collar would be enough to allow Maguire control over him once again.

            "You did it!" Shalimar approved. "Can you get the rest?"

            It took too long, but the eleven year old did it. The last collar came off of Brennan's neck, and he flung it to the ground.

            Brennan twisted a few million electrons between his hands. "I think we need a little insurance that nobody will use these puppies ever again. A little room, if you please?" He aimed a high voltage bolt at each of the collars. Moments later all that was left were four sizzling heaps of burned plastic, a few forlorn blackened wires sticking up out of the mess. He turned to Tess and Ernest. "You think that man—I won't insult you by referring to him as your father—has any more of those inside?"

            "Besides the one he has on Jesse, and the other kid?" Tess shook her head. "No. They're tough to make, and expensive. He's a cheapskate."

            "Good." Brennan rubbed his hands together in grim determination. "Then it's time to do a little lab wrecking."

*          *          *

            Jesse swam up through the blackness toward consciousness, and wished that he hadn't. His throat was sore; he knew that he screamed it raw. Every muscle in his body ached from trying to fight the restraints that Maguire had applied. And nothing that Tess had ever done to him equaled the nail-in-the-head kind of thing going on between his ears.

            Though the room possessed only dim light he could see his roommate lying quietly on his own hospital bed. Tom had this go-around easier than Jesse; Maguire had sedated the fifteen year old, and the kid was still sleeping it off. Jesse could only remember bits and pieces of what had happened: the collar going into action, vision coming in fits and starts. His hands phasing into Tom's head and withdrawing a bloody blackened lump of insensate flesh. And above it all the agony that set every nerve searing.

            All in all, Jesse was content to just lie there. The plastic mattress was uncomfortable but as long as he didn't have to move it would do.

            The door opened, letting in unwanted light and a visitor. Jesse squinted. It made his head hurt worse. He hadn't thought that that was possible.

            "Mr. Kilmartin. You're awake. I must admit, I'm surprised."

            Jesse found his voice. "What, that I'm awake?"

            "No. That you're alive. Usually my subjects don't survive after this level of sustained effort. Quite remarkable, really. I shall have to explore your limits further."

            "Don't go to any trouble on my account."

            Maguire ignored him. The real object of his attention in the next bed over stirred tentatively, and sighed. Jesse thought briefly about springing to his feet and over powering Maguire, then did a reality check. Breathing in and out was his level of activity right now.

            Maguire shone a penlight into Tom's eyes. The fifteen year old muttered something unintelligible, and shook his head. Maguire tapped him on the cheek. "Thomas. Thomas, wake up."

            More muttering, but Tom wasn't ready to awaken. Pulling a stethoscope from around his neck, Maguire listened in a few spots, then put it away, satisfied.

            He was not satisfied with Jesse. "Tell me, Mr. Kilmartin. How did your comrades escape?"

            _They escaped? Good_. Jesse relaxed onto the plastic mattress. "Beats me. I was here all the time. As you well know."

            Maguire pulled the black box out of his pocket, fingering it suggestively. Jesse froze. "All four had collars on, Mr. Kilmartin. Not one could use their powers. The cell was locked and watched. One moment they were there, the next they were gone. Where are they?"

            Jesse closed his eyes. This was going to hurt. "I don't know."

            He was right. Every nerve seized up, and even his heart twisted inside him. He heard a scream and wondered how he could have uttered it since there wasn't any breath left to scream with.

            Then the pain was gone, as instantly as it started. Jesse gasped for breath, unable to move. Maguire moved closer, waving the control box in front of his face. "I can increase the power, Mr. Kilmartin. I can leave this on longer until you beg me to kill you—" he broke off as a thought occurred to him. "My daughter is here, or rather, was here. Her brother must be, also. Did you teach him to phase as competently as you do, Mr. Kilmartin?"

            "Go to hell, Maguire."

            "I'll take that as a yes. It is the most logical explanation, given the circumstances. Though I am surprised that you would risk the boy in such a dangerous escapade." Maguire turned, his attention caught by Tom's movements. The fifteen year old was waking up. "No matter. I've more important things to attend to."

            Tom moaned, and Maguire moved closer. Jesse felt a ripple of fear and loathing flicker through him.

            It felt odd. It felt as though the fear was coming from something around him, not Maguire, though the man was terrifying enough. Shadows crawled in the corners of the dimly lit cell, and Maguire's face took on long and horrific proportions. There—something flashed by, too quick to be seen. Maguire had caught a glimpse of it too, for his head whipped around trying to follow the unseen flying projectile. Something rustled under his bed. Jesse felt too weak to try to hide. Unreasoning terror seized hold of him.

            Then he understood. The fear wasn't his—it was Tom's. Tom's insane terror, the reason the governor had been placed in his brain to begin with. Maguire, with Jesse's unwilling help, had set it free.

            Tom whimpered as the nonexistent horrors manifested themselves. Maguire started to howl, a captive of Tom's psychic powers. And, a moment later, Jesse found himself caught as well.

*          *          *

            With a last jolt, Brennan finished slagging the collars into a steaming heap of black tar. "And now," he announced, "I am seriously pissed. I am ready to tear down that warehouse, haul Jesse out of there along with Maguire's other captive, and be done with this whole mess."

            "Obligatory fight number four," Shalimar declared. "Bring it on."

            A spat of bullets marked the ground in front of them. Shalimar grabbed Ernest and Brennan hauled Tess to the ground into the bushes.

            "You've got to stop asking for these things, Shalimar," Lexa grumbled. "Excuse me." She vanished in a flicker of light.

            "Hide here," Brennan told Tess. "You too, Ernest. Don't move." Jumping up, he loosed a bolt of electrical energy. Three men were blown off their feet.

            Shalimar wasn't to be outdone. Speeding into their midst, she whipped through a line of Maguire's guards, dropping them with a kick here, and a punch there. She had them caught between a cross-fire, though none except she could see it; an invisible Lexa was knocking them down from behind, one by one.

            But—"Lexa," Shalimar called. "There's more." 

            Two dozen more men piled out of the factory, yelling and screaming and looking for something to punch at. Several of them batted at the air, stumbling over each other in their eagerness to get to Mutant X, ready for the final battle. Mutant X braced themselves.

            But to the group's amazement, not one of the men stayed to even throw a single jab or uppercut. Instead, they ran off down the road. Two managed to get into their cars and roar away, but most couldn't spare the time to unlock doors and start the motors. Fleeing from the factory was uppermost in their minds by the most direct means possible.

            Lexa stared. "What's gotten into them?"

            It nearly bowled them over. It was like looking at a double negative: they could see both the pleasant spring afternoon, but with horrible cobwebs and dingy clouds overlaid like a bad transparency. Ernest burst into terrified tears; Shalimar automatically hugged him close for comfort.

            Both Brennan and Shalimar recognized the sensation. Emma had done this once, just once, but the effect was unmistakable: a psionic blast of terror. Someone inside was emitting mental waves of horror, hurling them all around indiscriminately.

            And Jesse was at ground zero.

            "C'mon!" Lexa cried out. "We have to stop this!" She plowed forward, Brennan and Shalimar in her wake. She spared a glance for the two children. "Stay here. We'll be back."

            Tess looked at Ernest, watching as the Mutant X team dashed inside the factory, wiping the sudden tears from her eyes and recognizing what it was. She'd gotten 'charges' off of psionics, and had a pretty good idea what was happening. Once identified, it didn't seem as bad. She turned back to her little brother. "Wait here? Right. Jesse's inside. You up for this, Ernest?"

            The eleven year old shrugged, wiping the tears off of his face and getting hold of himself. Already his control was reasserting itself and flowering under Tess's determination. "After differential equations, how hard could this be?"

*          *          *

            The psychic blast hit each mutant differently.

            For Brennan, it was as though he were standing in water, live wires dancing around his head. Only he could touch the wires, but one wrong move and he would be fried with more than a million volts charging through him. More wires came at him, more and more until he couldn't keep track of them. Back to the wall, he sank down, trying to minimize the area he had to defend. The horror seized him, hampering his ability to think, and to concentrate. It was too much: he screamed in helpless terror.

            Shalimar was plunged into an imaginary sea of fire. Flames licked up around her, setting her mind spinning in panic. Nerve endings shrieked under the onslaught of non-existent heat, and tongues of fire caressed her skin like tiny whiplashes. She hunkered down into a little ball, trying to crawl under the smoke, trying to make herself as small as possible so that the fire would ignore her and go away. The horror seized her, hampering her ability to think, and to concentrate. It was too much: she screamed in helpless terror.

            It was total darkness for Lexa. Try as she might, not one photon could she raise. Things rustled in the dark at her, brushed up against her unseen, ripped at her flesh from behind. She huddled into a little ball, hiding her face in her arms. The horror seized her, hampering her ability to think, and to concentrate. It was too much: she screamed in helpless terror.

            Ernest took Tess by the sleeve, automatically avoiding contact with bare flesh that would initiate the vampiric psionic drain. The pair waded into the psychic morass, walking ahead past Mutant X and the overcome guards huddled in the corridor. It wasn't pleasant, but the pair had already been to hell and back. For the Maguire children, this was only a warm up.

            Their own nightmare was one and the same: their father, Absalom Maguire, bearing down on them, black collars in hand. He loomed like a tall disciplinarian, floating down upon them through the bare corridor with the false smile he always wore when he wanted something from his mutant children. Black tendrils drifted around his head like smoky blind snakes.

            It didn't work. Both children had already lived through that horror, and survived through the resiliency of youth and the caring of Mutant X. They had done it once, and could do it again.

            The psychic epicenter lay not too far from the entrance. Tess headed for it almost hungrily, unerringly bearing down on the source of the terror that flooded the corridors, Ernest in her wake. Here and there were men unable to get out in time, each one curled up in a fetal position on the floor, whimpering wordless little noises to themselves, helpless to escape the nightmarish awfulness, being slowly and horribly driven insane by the psionic onslaught.

            The door to the cell was locked, but that didn't stop the pair of children. Ernest placed his hand upon it as Jesse had taught him and exhaled. The door faded into nothing, and the pair walked through into the cell where the psychic energy lived and grew.

Two hospital beds were inside, but Tess only had eyes for one of them. She stepped over the quivering wreck of flesh on the floor that was her father, and approached the one containing a gangly brown-haired boy. He stared at her in despair, only half seeing the girl.

            "Don't worry," Tess said. "I'm here now." She put her hand to Tom's cheek, and began the psionic drain.

*          *          *

            "Absolutely not, young man. It's a school night." But the twinkle in Granny Esther's eye told everyone present that Ernest would get away with staying up late. And that Mrs. Pettigrew wouldn't hear a word about it.

            Jesse grinned. Two weeks of rest in Lady Esther's country home had done much to erase the lines in his face, and last night was the first time he'd slept through without waking up screaming. Shalimar and Brennan had hovered over him for the first several days—they'd dragged him out, catatonic, from Maguire's factory—and Jesse'd even caught Lexa sneaking a worried glance at him when she thought he wasn't looking. His throat felt better too, and he could finally speak above a whisper. Lady Esther's herbal tea with honey had worked wonders.

            The other three of Mutant X had suffered as well. Brennan cringed at every snap, crackle, and pop, and Shalimar refused to let Lady Esther light any of her candles. And Lexa—well, Lexa had quietly invested in a nightlight, until Brennan found out about it and ribbed her so badly that she gave it up. And didn't sleep a wink that night. Or the next, or the next, until the moon shone brightly enough not to need it.

            Absalom Maguire was a lost cause. Grimly, the trio had pulled him out of the factory as well, but it was too late. His mind was gone. Better that way, was Lexa's cold assessment, and they turned him over to the authorities to care for the man's body. Neither Tess nor Ernest could stand to look at the man who had sired them.

            Of them all, Tess and Ernest and Tom had fared the best. Ernest put it behind him with the typical aplomb of youth—"can I go back to my computer now?"—which was a tribute to Lady Esther's delicate hand. After the life of horror, to see Ernest recover so readily spoke much for the home she had built.

            Tess too had settled in remarkably. Jesse, when he finally was up to it, was worried about her, but she waved him off. "Jesse," she said, waving her hand airily, "that was before. I didn't have anyone to get a charge off of. Now there's Tom."

            _Now there's Tom_. The fifteen year old no longer had an internal governor to help him control the psychic tidal wave that routinely crashed in on him, but he had Tess. A daily drain from the psionic vampire dampened his talent enough so that he could control both the thoughts coming in and the thoughts coming out. The governor wasn't internal, but Tom didn't mind. Tess as an external governor did just fine.

            "Look at them," Jesse sighed, lounging on the sofa. The headache was almost gone. Shalimar had brought him a lemonade, and he sipped at it. "Living here together, they're going to be as close as brother and sister. Good thing, too. They'll help each other get through life."

            "Look again," Lexa advised drily. "That's not brother and sister activity there."

            Lady Esther fixed Jesse with a determined eye. "She's quite right, you know, Jesse. I will discuss lady-like behavior with Tess, but I expect you to take on young Master Thomas. You brought him here to my house, you can deal with the consequences!"

            Jesse sighed again. "And to think, I thought dealing with a couple of kids was no big deal."


End file.
